


And Time remembered

by TFALokiwriter



Category: Lost in Space (1998), Lost in Space (Cartoon 1973), Lost in Space (TV 1965), Lost in Space (TV 2018), The Robinsons: Lost in Space (2004)
Genre: Family, Found Family, Free Verse, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Poetry, Speculation, Spoilers, The Power Of Love, Time - Freeform, Time Loop, Time Travel, for season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TFALokiwriter/pseuds/TFALokiwriter
Summary: Time was a strange creature,Chronos knew that,
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	And Time remembered

Time was a strange creature,

\--it was curious,

easily confused,

easily intrigued--

Chronos knew that,

his machines were ones that used it,

handled it,

and controlled it. 

A child yanked him out of his lab,

away from Time and the workers,

The child wasn't alone,

but the older companion was inept,

So he took the child,

leaving the old man behind.

The child worked,

toiling away time,

obediently, yet kindly, waiting.

The father arrived,

The old man arrived,

the machine arrived.

The old man ran to the past,

behind their backs,

In a discussion,

to return home and prevent _them_ from being lost.

Time watched as the old man fell through time,

His body adrift within it,

in a state of stasis,

his mind fallen into his younger self. 

The old man's act were all for null,

Without his presence,

they were to die.

The machine was sent after him,

to warn him,

Time took the machine's memories,

and watched as the events played out.

The child went after the machine,

Time allowed him passage,

Remaining in his present form,

While it held on to the older man's figure. 

The child left,

the machine left,

and the old man was left behind.

Time was curious,

Traveling in it was dangerous,

risky,

and costly.

It studied the old man's life span,

Watching him go through the newly born loop.

Again and again and again,

as the father fought for him,

Despite his prior acts,

And they got the old man back.

And make their way to Gamma five years after becoming stranded.

Time was confused.

And Time remembered.

And Doctor Smith's fate became tied with it.

Time started again in a new timeline,

the old man was a passenger,

(the machine, a different person. The old man, the same man)

destination, Saturn, on a sabbatical with a slight case of the flu.

The uniforms,

Of the first timeline,

echoed into the new timeline,

the Robinsons were different people,

Robot was called Robon,

the chariot wasn't the chariot but the bug,

the Jupiter 2 was a space shuttle, a rocket,

the course thrown off by a meteor shower,

They spent three years,

Desperately seeking for ways home,

until a dome, being operated in a lab, that allowed passage into time,

was discovered by Craig Robinson,

Smith went through it,

and stopped himself from boarding the Jupiter 2,

The Robinsons discover the fate of their ship,

to be dire.

Robon goes after him,

but the memory tapes have a problem with the crystal,

Link goes after him,

the same events happen as they had before. 

Smith weeps for the lost opportunity,

Dina, Link, Craig and Robon assure him,

that he did it for a good cause,

and he smiles.

That's the last time he genuinely smiles,

up until two years later when narrowly escaping a battle,

a battle lead by Craig Robinson against the prying green mantis emperor,

with the aid of all the aliens they had befriended and helped,

the Jupiter 2 shuttle returns to Earth to a glory of celebration.

the longest sabbatical in history ends,

Smith gives lectures of surviving in space,

Dina takes the next flight to Saturn,

and finally relieves a staff member,

of their overdue shift.

Craig Robinson is given a quick promotion,

over the pride of his grandfather John Robinson and grandmother Maureen Robinson, 

Even his mother Penny, aunt Judy, and uncle Don,

Link insists on Smith spending his next sabbatical at Alpha Centauri. 

Smith complies,

He crosses by Will and B-9,

\--at the cybernetic institute, whining, complaining about the landing--

both of whom are old as he was,

\---after Craig accidentally crashes the ship and damages the navigation Robon,---

and gets to hear about the many adventures they had, 

regarding robots and crashed ships,

they bond over this,

and quickly become fast friends.

Smith visits Will and B-9,

when his opportunities arise, 

eventually, he moves to Gamma and tears up his visa,

vowing never again to go into space -- over the amusement of the Robinsons -- saying, " _That young man was about to crash that shuttle into a mountain and I am not risking it anymore!_ "

and goes on to teach at John Robinson's Academy.

_Odd,_

Time thought,

_how they met,_

_anyway._

_Why?_

And Time remembered.

Time tried a new timeline.

This time the old man was a young man.

This time the machine was tall and powerful,

This time the young man's sabotage was known,

this time the young man's chances of dying rose significantly around the major,

And this time, something was _different_ , something was _off_ , something was _wrong_.

Three years later,

The young man goes out in a unforeseen sacrifice,

as a monster,

_(all tied to Time_ )

Even unseen as a impromptu part of a plan,

giving the Robinsons ample time to escape Alpha Prime, 

With the help of the paradox (and resurrected) Robot,

Everyone's attention is on him,

The Robinsons return back in a newly born time bubble,

To their Alpha Prime full of relief;

To the year 2058.

Until they realize,

one of them is notably silent,

They look at the gap of the bridge where he _should_ be.

Doctor Smith is _missing_ ,

Penny finds a rough draft of a letter that he made,

just before they found Alpha Prime.

A letter that he wrote for _them_ ,

in the event that worse came on the route,

and he couldn't have survived,

Tears are shed. 

And the fourteen year old is angry, 

Robot has nothing to say.

He is gone,

he is never coming back,

and they can't get him back,

Doctor Smith made a self-sacrifice out of love,

knowing the cost,

knowing the risk,

knowing the pain.

Will takes a space pod,

in the middle of the night,

The left over Robot goes with him.

They return months later,

with Smith,

very confused,

demanding for answers,

_"Why in the heavens did you take me from my room, William? Professors? What are you snickering at? Major? Doctor? Did something happen that I am not aware of."_

The Robinsons accept him back into their timeline and finish the curing process for their saboteur on Alpha Prime.

( _The other loop; everything is still fine._

_Robot enlisted a member of Global Sedition,_

_Smith is still missing._

_Everyone assumes he remained since his letter was never saved as a draft_ )

Time was confused,

And Time remembered.

Time started a new timeline that had no time loop just as the previous loop was not.

The young man became a old man,

this time the machine was a alien machine,

this time the boy became obsessed with the creature.

This time the old man had no part in the machine's rampage.

This time the old man didn't cross paths with the boy and his place was taken by a woman.

_"Doctor Zoe Smith,"_

Time whispers.

The name doesn't echo back,

in the way that it had,

no pride,

no honor,

no approval.

They are not a Smith,

Never will be.

The woman dies in a glorious blaze,

( _right before Time's eyes _)__

Trying rid herself of the Robinsons,

for a clean slate,

getting to Alpha Centauri with no one to insist,

That she is not Doctor Smith.

Time is _confused_.

This time the boy and the old man meet on Gamma,

three years after the attack on the resolute,

the boy, Will, a teenager

and the old man, Doctor Zachary Smith, a recovering patient

The alien machine,

(and his friend, Scarecrow)

become protectors of Gamma,

within the Alpha Centauri System. 

The boy came across the old man by complete accident at a chess tournament,

The old man is bound in a wheelchair, 

shaking his head,

watching the game play ahead,

whining, complaining, clearly unhappy.

_"Oh, the pain. The pain."_

and they discuss cybernetics for awhile.

Doctor Smith insults the tall towering alien robots much later.

Without knowing how important the machine is to the colony.

Their heads bobs up, startled, then steps out of the way of the beach

all the while the doctor is training himself to paint,

and directs the machine to be in a certain position,

it turns out that he is painting them. 

The alien robot, Robinson Robot, comes over

The old man is proud of himself,

and wheels away,

Robot follows.

The portrait makes Robot,

look like a strange alien tree with a orb in the center of the trunk,

with bright clouds behind him.

The confused alien robot stalks after him,

with nothing to do,

The old man goes on a tirade of insults,

until he notices Robinson Robot's demeanor.

The old man quickly hands over his chores.

Robinson Robot perks up,

And the old man hangs out with Robinson Robot, 

They start a unusual friendship with few words from Robot,

and many words that come from Doctor Smith toward it;

_"You bubble headed booby, I don't care where in the heavens you are from, that is not how you make a bird nest!"_

The old man makes certain sacrifices,

Letting go of certain opportunities that allow him to _walk_ ,

for the teenager.

\-- After betraying Gamma and Robinson Robot over and over,

thinking that he had the right opportunity ---

The teenager has problems with enemies of the alien robot's species,

and Doctor Smith can't exactly associate himself to them,

if he wants to befriend a teenager with a intelligent mind.

Acts of love and self-sacrifice that go unspoken of,

Just the way that the old man liked,

Acts that go unnoticed for another three years.

A time war over Gamma is prevented,

with the old man throwing away the final opportunity to walk,

in exchange for the safe return of Scarecrow and Robinson Robot,

And throwing himself in to ensure the time machine is sabotaged enough it can't be repaired.

This time, Doctor Smith's sacrifice is noticed, after the commotion is settled.

Will and his family,

fight tooth and nail against Time,

Scarecrow and Robinson Robot enlist their species in the effort,

Bringing him back for that very Christmas, 

destroying facts, knowledge, every bit of residue from the rescue effort of the time extraction machine,

It's not the final opportunity,

He gets to test the recently developed exoskeleton,

made by Robinson Robot, Scarecrow, and Doctor Robinson,

that allows him to walk.

Will calls Doctor Smith his best friend now,

The older man beams back,

Happily.

_"Doctor Smith is our friend."_ Robinson Robot says.

and the Robinsons cheer for the first long sentence from Robot.

They throw a party,

and make him say it,

constantly,

to the delight of the other colonists,

and they laugh in delight.

And Time remembers.

_This time I will get it right._

_I know what I didn't understand._

The next time is a time loop, 

Doctor Smith is a old man,

Will is a young orphaned boy,

Robot is a environmental control machine.

Only survivors of a colony crash,

Smith sabotaged the environmental robot,

but he had became trapped in the colony ship,

The Jupiter 2.

Will's family live on as memories to him,

Stranded in space,

on a foreign planet,

facing uncertainty, hardship, and difficulty.

The trio find themselves

drawn together,

as a unexpected family.

_It's their bond_ , Time understands.

The spaceship is repaired,

They are able to make lift off,

their destination:

Alpha Centauri.

_It's family_ , Time understands.

Three years later,

Doctor Smith finds a time machine and jumps into it.

He spares the family

But he and Will and Robot _die in the process._

_It's love_ , Time understands.

John goes after him,

stopping him,

After heartache, tears, and protesting against it,

Smith doesn't spare Will of losing his family, 

But he relives the next three years.

And they make it to Alpha Centauri a month after the adventure.

_It's the ultimate sacrifice for those they love,_ Time understands.

And Time remembers.

The next timeloop goes like this way,

the Robinsons names are stolen by saboteurs,

freezing them in stasis at the lab,

and steal the Jupiter 2.

Doctor Zachary Smith is aboard doing last checks for the cryogenic tubes,

Smith is knocked out by the imposter of Major West.

the Jupiter 2 lifts off,

During lift off Robot goes on a rampage after the Jupiter 2 alarm was pulled by Major West during the fight,

then the imposter John Robinson turns on the hyper drive,

Robot is disarmed,

and they are hopelessly lost.

The imposters of the Robinsons try to be better people,

Smith and the imposters live in the same ship for two years,

trying to get home going from planet to planet,

seeking for food, supplies, and a escape from boredom.

until one day they make a slip and everything begins to fall apart,

until she hears of the _truth_.

Smith is terrified of them and hides behind Robot,

and everything she knows about them is thrown into doubt,

once she finds out that the last two years were nothing but them gaslighting her about what had happened,

She gets captured the following afternoon,

Screams,

demands not to be taken back,

in the mist of tears, pain, and betrayal.

the alien civilization complies, looking down, worriedly upon her, then put her into a cell.

She watches the J2 flee the planet the following afternoon and shrieks at them for their distasteful deceit.

The _real_ Robinsons come after her a few months later, 

aboard the Jupiter 3,

all alive and well,

she is scared,

she doesn't know whether to trust them or believe them,

About them claiming to be who they say they are,

it's hard building up that trust after the experience with the imposters.

They find the imposters,

with the loss of the Jupiter 3,

Robot confirms; the new arrivals _are_ the Robinsons.

_"Their mind waves match their last scans, Doctor Smith."_

and Smith goes outside

then silently cries on a boulder. 

Will finds her,

puts a hand on her shoulder,

and Smith lets him stay.

The imposters are returned to Earth in a quick transport,

Then Smith is next to be sent back to Earth,

The farewells are easy to make,

The quick transport break down in the middle of transport.

Smith is stuck between dimensions,

Waiting to be extracted for what feels to be a moment,

She is rescued by the combined intellect of the Robinsons,

and they are a little less lost than they had been before, 

Slowly, Smith lets them in and her heart heals. 

A year later,

Will makes a time machine,

determined on righting the past,

then leaps into the arch way of the machine into the lab of time. 

Will returns to find his parents waiting for him, 

They discover what he did and realize he may have been successful, 

as their memories of the event begin to change.

until Time's keeper, Chronos, reveals the tragic aspect,

they are set to die in the next five minutes,

because the Jupiter 2 was in a asteroid collision on the maiden route.

Smith sacrifices herself for them.

Silently, distraught, heartbroken,

but she accepts the price.

They get her back.

The next one isn't a time loop, 

The Robinsons are part of a mothership with several saucers,

The mothership is attacked,

they escape in the nick of time and it is destroyed,

Penny is a baby, they have a older son they lose, and they are stranded,

eventually, they find a doctor by the name of Doctor Smith hiding in cargo.

They find a planet,

Don makes a controlled crash landing,

Doctor Smith and the Robinsons are stranded on the planet for three years,

the initial time loop this had started opens up again,

this time, it's Penny and Will are in the cave with Doctor Smith.

( _This one is a time loop_ , Time realizes.)

Will is still taken,

Penny is left behind with Smith,

John goes, 

so does Robot,

then so does Smith.

Smith gets his way,

tries to prevent the entire episode happening,

sparing the person they cared the most about; David,

it becomes revealed by Chronos they would have died by other means,

Robot is sent after him,

then Will. 

David -- from another timeline -- goes after Smith.

Doctor Smith doesn't go down the fatal path,

he goes down the path that lead him into the cargo,

and waits for the next three years to pass,

taking the long way back.

Will and Robot leave with Penny,

John fights for Smith as everything around him explode,

He gets him back.

The next time is a time loop,

\--Time had learned, the ultimate price, has to be weighed carefully by the doctor is **the future**. _Is Doctor Smith willing to pay that? To do this in every timeline? Every universe?_ \---

Smith is trapped aboard the second Starship colony class,

Called the Jupiter 2,

Along with the Robinsons,

and the environmental robot,

They survive the crash land. 

Three years come and go,

with hardship,

unexpected aliens,

unexpected relics,

and the old man,

as expected,

sacrifices his foreseeable future for the Robinsons to live.

\--- _Yes_ , Time realizes. _Doctor Smith does_.---

And they _do_.

It's Maureen and John fighting for him,

against the technicians of the laboratory,

with Will and Robot,

safe and sound in the cave outside of Time,

scared, desperate, hopeful.

Time watches as they retrieve Doctor Smith,

over and over and over and over,

old, young adult, middle aged

_"Doctor Zachary Smith,"_

Time whispers,

there was pride,

there was honor,

there was approval in response.

Man, woman, no gender,

android, robot, alien,

it did not matter. 

They love Doctor Smith for _who_ they were not _what_ they were,

they embraced them into their family,

as if they were one of their own.

Doctor Smith was not a title, 

it was a name belonging to a person that echoed through Time,

Will Robinson always met the person named Doctor Zachary Smith,

had a form of a platonic relationship.

There are just as many,

where it became a well aging long term friendship, 

that it had been a unstable badly kept friendship,

manipulation, lies, betrayal, back stabbing, hurt.

But it echoed through the ages,

becoming timeless as Time.

If he didn't meet the person,

Known as Doctor Smith,

the entire universe twisted itself to make sure that he did,

_Eventually._

The Robinsons fought for Doctor Smith,

across Time and space,

just as Doctor Smith fought for them,

to making sure everything went the way it was supposed to,

Where things had gone - armed with a family that had open arms - with the promise of seeing them _again_.

Smith's personality echoed through Time and space. 

The kindness of the Robinsons, emitting from Will, echoed as well,

Robot's bobbed helm echoed the loudest, rolling through time, soaring after Smith to stop him from making the mistake;

wherever and whenever he was.

And sometimes,

it's not Will or Robot going after him in time,

in all the complex and elaborate time loops.

Sometimes it's either;

John Robinson,

Maureen Robinson,

Don West,

Judy Robinson

Penny Robinson,

or the entire Jupiter 2.

And they always made Time regret keeping their doctor.

And Time _remembered_.

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot the animated Lost in Space that was made in 1973 until I was browsing Tumblr. So yes, that was added. Much later.


End file.
